


and heaven was fair as a field in flower

by mistrali



Category: Tortall - Tamora Pierce
Genre: Afterlife, Alternate Universe - Afterlife, Character Death, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-01
Updated: 2021-03-01
Packaged: 2021-03-13 13:21:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29776764
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mistrali/pseuds/mistrali
Summary: Title from Swinburne.Taybur, in the Peaceful Realms. AU set during TQ.
Kudos: 4





	and heaven was fair as a field in flower

"He... he couldn’t leave [Dunevon] out here alone.” 

\- KrisEleven, 'Certain Knowing Circles'

* * *

Taybur jolted awake to find himself dangling off an outcrop, covered in lice. He spat one out of his mouth, hoping none had crawled into his stomach while he was asleep.

He went to call the king's name and found his throat blocked. Racing through every drug he knew, he tried to think of those that rendered the user mute but left the memory alone. For he remembered the storm clearly enough. Remembered plunging like a pearl diver, his throat about to burst, and Dunevon toppling from his fingers into the sea...

Something brushed his shoulder. He flinched and cried aloud, though it made no sound. By the creature's own weak green light, he glimpsed rows of teeth in a rounded, inky head. Then it faded back into the gloom. 

Other glowing things moved, too, floating along in the darkness, around and over him. Windows of yellow light flickered past, red eyes watched from the depths, vivid varicoloured flowers in concentric circles closed and opened out of nowhere and left ripples in their wake. He began to realise dimly that he was deep in the Emerald Ocean. It ought to be cold, but he was... why wasn't he cold? Why couldn't he feel anything?

Then, a call, so powerful that it washed over him and made the creatures scatter. A ship was approaching - a huge coracle like the Tortallans used out at sea. 

_There you are, my little shrimp_ , murmured the Wave-Walker - for who else could it be, in his head like that? She was wearing some blue-green, silver-black garment that glistened like siren scales in his mind's eye. _Don't be afraid of my deep-dwellers. They need their homes too, you know, and they need to eat. This one's not for you, my beauties, he's bound for the Peaceful Realms._

The Black God, he thought. But there's someone I have to find first.

\-----

They docked in the full afternoon sun.

Taybur scanned the faces of the crowds swarming from the boats onto the pier. There were plenty of toddlers, some being dragged along by their parents, but none who looked like Dunevon. 

Even if the child wasn't king anymore, he was still in Taybur’s charge. He’d be alone, scared, and crying - that is, if he hadn't been picked up and kidnapped. This place looked hundreds of times times bigger than Rajmuat, let alone the Grey Palace. The gods alone knew what sorts of people were out here - all the thieves and child killers and slavers that ever lived. He cursed himself for an idiot for letting the boy out of his sight for one breath.

_And how could you have stopped him, with your lungs and heart failing?_

The voice was like velvet and stone quarries, monsoon rain and diamond, and a thousand other things.

"I don't want to look at you, Dark One," he whispered. This was the very opposite of the Trickster - unchanging, essential, and yet mutable.

_Stand up, Guardsman Sibigat. You still have one more task._

It was the kindness, this time, or maybe the title, which made him obey. The Black God looked down at him and smiled, if a being without eyes or mouth could be said to do either. The look didn't comfort him; it made his teeth unclench and his shoulders slump, but it didn't salve the guilt in his belly.

"I was supposed to fight," he told the god, turning back to the scene around him. "Is that the task? Or can I go back and find him?" He felt his face contort and his eyes burn and wiped at them. "Whoever did this, whoever killed him, I swear by Mithros and the Sunrose I'll find them out."

 _Kyprioth has had enough imprisonment at the hands of the other Great Gods_ , said the Black God. He slipped a hood around Taybur's head, and held out a black cloak. _Don't try to play him false - only other gods are powerful enough to trick the Trickster._

"The Trickster killed four little boys? Why?" asked Taybur numbly. Tyrants Imajane and Rubinyan might be, but he hoped they would at least grieve their son.

_Ancharn Uniunu has not yet disembarked from the boats._

"Three, then," snarled Taybur, before he could stop himself. "What festering difference does it make?"

 _You are grieving,_ said the god, still implacably gentle. _Kyprioth and the Hag won't suffer as you want them to. Even tricksters can't change their natures, and his is to rule over the seas and skies of the Isles. Anything else is foreign to him_. 

Taybur drew the cloak about his shoulders and found himself in a jungle. In the middle distance there was a fort - not a battle fort but a peacetime one, built in miniature. Taybur smiled. He could tell quite clearly that a child had built it. It towered above him in rainbow colours - bright blue, coral-pink, fern-green, and yellow.

Here was his ward, king of his own castle at last. 

"I'm going to protect you now," said Dunevon, as composedly as if it were an ordinary day playing soldiers in Rajmuat. "The nice man gave me the job."

"Black God, Highness — Dunevon. That's his name. His, well, his title, anyway."

And as Dunevon shinned up the ladder, Taybur was content to bask in the shade of the soursop tree.


End file.
